He couldn't rest.

He couldn't sleep, either, though that was less of an immediate concern. He'd been out for the count several times in the past seventy-two hours, but 'sleep', Squall considered, was very different to 'rest'.

Lying comatose in a prison cell after surviving what should have been a lethal blow, especially while dreaming about that clown Laguna, was not rest.

Dangling unconscious from the chains of a torture rack, in the spaces between torrents of questions and agonising shocks, was not rest.

Dozing off for twenty minutes in the back of their 'borrowed' army truck, jostled by every tiny bump on the desert trail, was not rest.

Grabbing a few broken hours on a stolen train, starting awake every so often to ensure Zell hadn't driven the damn thing off the tracks, was not rest.

And perhaps all of those events stretched even the definition of 'sleep' to its very limit, and his body really was crying out for an undisturbed solid eight hours of being dead to the world . . . but this was more than just sleep deprivation. This was a twitch in Squall's soul, a silent buzz in every bone, the roaring of his heartbeat between his ears, the constant twanging of barbed strings deep in the pit of his belly.

This was waiting for the next curve ball. This was waiting for his adrenal gland to remember how to switch itself off.

Squall stalked his way back into the main hall, having ventured far enough into the infirmary corridor to ensure the injured students spilling out on borrowed dorm bedding were not being mauled by lingering monsters. Any further and he'd have caught Dr Kadowaki's eye, and interest, and questions, and he didn't want that; he had enough of his own swirling around the maelstrom of his head.

It was a little before three am. Balamb Garden's systems were still configured for the curfew, suppressing the lighting in the main hall to a soft luminance and muting its warm colours. Spotlights gave the water pools a subdued glow that danced in rippling patterns across the high walls and drew faintly-illuminated edges around the familiar silhouettes of the hall's circular architecture.

This was usually his favourite hour in the Garden.

As a student, up late worrying about things that seemed embarrassingly trivial in hindsight, Squall would often take a long, slow walk from his dorm to the training centre to burn away any nocturnal energy. Combat was good for that . . . but the walk itself was as much of a balm as carving through a few grats with his gunblade. The incessant daytime noise of the milling student body would be replaced by the rhythmic singing of crickets from the shrubbery, and the gentle, burbling sigh of ripples from the stone fish fountains echoing in the cavernous space. Deserted (if you ignored the stern-faced Faculty members on watch). Quiet. Tranquil. Squall had taken pleasure in every footstep that rang in the relative silence. It was one of few spaces where he had ever felt genuinely at peace.

And like everything else he knew, it had now changed beyond recognition.

Of course, there was damage from the fighting; as Squall patrolled, he passed singed greenery, a broken bench and walls scuffed and charred in places where the combat had been intense. He stepped through soil and ruined vegetation scattered from overturned planters, and had to dodge around a handful of larger monster corpses they had yet to haul outside.

The biggest difference, however, was the noise.

The Faculty had retreated after instigating the Garden's little civil war, and in their absence the student body were taking advantage. Pockets of them were eagerly breaking the rules they'd followed for years, their hushed voices rising to a background murmur that violated the usual quiet of the Garden after-hours. He could see a few up on the inner ring, gathered around the benches sharing stories, and hear distant footsteps on the other side of the hall, out of his sight. The whispers were excitable and furtive, replacing twilight serenity with an atmosphere of rebellion, of unrest.

Of change. Of upheaval.

And underfoot hummed the alien undulations of the displaced golden ring of the Garden, churning away beneath him, propelling their home aimlessly across the ocean of a world already spinning on its own axis. The mechanism was beyond him; he couldn't stop it. He couldn't control it. He couldn't control any of it.

Even if he tried to stand still, he couldn't stop moving.

You'd think the fate of three lives would weigh him down a little.

No. Squall took a deep breath. His gunblade's cold weight burned into his shoulder and he squeezed the hilt convulsively, driving a creak from the leather of his glove. The heels of his boots began to grind a little harder into the floor with each marching step.

Ahead, two students huddled shoulder-to-shoulder on an undamaged bench. They stopped their low whispering when he passed, and flashed him a ready pair of smiles.

"Hey, Squall."

He nodded at them coolly, a vestigial gesture of politeness. The dark-haired girl frequented the library a lot, and the blonde was pretty good with magic, from what he remembered of glimpses of her in the training centre. He'd seen them both around plenty in his years here.

He didn't know their names.

He didn't understand how everyone seemed to know his.

When did that happen? How? People he'd never spoken a word to of his own volition would greet him in the corridors like they were old friends. Just about everyone and their mother seemed to have an opinion on him and would happily assail him with it until he was drowning in uninvited judgement. Why did so many people make it their mission to take an unwanted goddamn interest in him? He gave them nothing of himself and shoved them all away, but they just pushed relentlessly back, wearing him down, fighting to wedge themselves into his personal space.

Some of them had managed to get a foot in that door and jam it open, if only an inch. And he . . . he hadn't slammed it shut in their faces yet.

He wasn't sure he wanted to.

He was afraid of what that meant.

Crack.

Squall whirled. Fatigue couldn't dull the habitual reactions of years of training; his feet carried him off over the bridge to the cafeteria without any conscious thought. The sound of a breakage, even a discreet one like that, had him reaching out for the cold whisper at the back of his mind, where Shiva's junction was ever waiting to be tapped.

The cafeteria lighting was even dimmer than the main hall. He couldn't see anything moving behind the shadowy service counter, but he could hear scuffling and what sounded like broken glass being scraped around. He swung the gunblade into play, brandishing it in front of him, finger on the trigger -

"Ow!" A hissed complaint gave him pause. "Damn it."

It wasn't difficult to recognise the voice. Squall let the tip of his weapon droop hesitantly to the floor, where it hit the tiles with a dull tunk that made a head pop up inquisitively from behind the counter - a head crested with a familiar spiky pompadour.

Zell took one look at him and froze in the midst of sucking sheepishly on his index finger. With his other hand he attempted to sneak a dustpan full of glass shards up onto the counter. As stealth operations went, it might have been achieved more delicately by a berserked wendigo. "Yo! 'Sup?"

"What are you doing in there?" And then, because Squall's fogged brain simply couldn't come up with anything else: " . . . Are you stealing the hotdogs?"

Zell recoiled. "Me?! Hell no! We gotta ration those things. Who knows how long we'll be out at sea? You want everyone to be eating nothin' but fish-dogs?" His groan was longsuffering." Trust me, I grew up in Balamb. Fish gets old fast. Anyway, I couldn't sleep. And I'm thirsty. And I figure we've earned at least a little reward for saving the whole Garden, right?"

Squall was already turning on his heel. "Try not to break the whole kitchen."

"Hey, wait! C'mon, take a load off? Pretty sure we got all the monsters, so I'm guessing you can't sleep either."

Could he escape his teammates' armchair analyses for even five minutes? Apparently not. Still, against his better instincts he hesitated, planting a hand on his hip and inclining ever so slightly back toward the counter so he could give it a cynical side-eye. Zell had both hands broad and braced against it like he owned the place. "I got access to all the good stuff, baby! Y'know, within reason. If the cafeteria staff have a secret stash of liquor, I couldn't find it. You ever think it's really unfair that we're still too young to drink, but old enough to go fight in wars and assassinate sorceresses and stuff? Guess we'll just have to make do without. So . . ." He leaned forward, eyebrows dancing and eager smile gleaming. "What can I get ya?"

For a moment, every fibre of Squall's being wanted to turn away and disappear into the gloom of the corridor. But those fibres were weary and frayed and recovering from a thousand hurts, so it was inevitable that a few rebelled; that was all it took for the whole lot to unravel at the seams. His eyes were drawn to the nearest table and the sanctuary of a formica seat.

"Water," he said, with a dismissive flick of his hand.

Zell made a disgusted noise. "Don't live too dangerously, man."

Squall left his unexpected host clinking and clicking away behind the counter, doubtless making more of a mess that the kitchen ladies would want blood for in the morning; he made a mental note to steer clear of opening hour.

The standard cafeteria chair was all hard lines and cold plastic, but his tired muscles sank into it like it was covered in velvet cushions. Squall set the heavy gunblade down on the tiling at his feet and jammed an elbow on the table, his face magnetically finding a cradle in the comfort of his palm. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a few distant tables on the upper tier with a handful more errant students flouting the rules, the soft whispers - but not the words - of their illicit conversations carrying faintly to his ears. If the Disciplinary Committee were here . . .

But they weren't here. Their leader was busy betraying Garden and all his fellow students. Seifer's leering face sprang to the forefront of his mind and made the knot of icy fury in his chest burn.

A mug rattled down onto the table in front of him. Squall buried the quiet rage away for later and cast a sceptical eye at the steam rising from the frothy dark liquid within.

"That's funny-looking water."

"It's hot chocolate. You're welcome!"

Squall sighed. He curled his free hand around the mug and the heat quickly seeped through the leather of his gloves. It was a pleasant sensation, and the rich vapour smelled nothing short of amazing - not that he would have admitted it aloud. Zell threw himself bodily into the chair opposite, nursing a twin mug of his own. Squall could feel those invasive blue eyes on him, but he left his own drowning in the depths of rich brown beverage. There was nothing important to say.

Zell, of course, disagreed.

"So . . ." he finally ventured, when he felt awkward enough. "Long day, huh?"

A non-question. Even on a good day, with energy available for dealing with people's meaningless social drivel, Squall wouldn't have answered it.

"I wanted to ask . . . I mean, now that Rinoa's asleep, I thought we could talk? Y'know, man to man?"

Squall finally looked up at him, one bleary, bewildered eye framed between two fingers. Zell was puffed up in his seat, back straight and hands spread like he was about to deliver a serious speech.

God help him.

"A lot of stuff's happened to us since we left Timber, huh?" he started. "Our mission against the the Sorceress feels like it was doomed from the start . . . Rinoa said you were hurt pretty badly in that fight. She didn't even know if you were gonna make it. I couldn't even get to you - soldiers were swarming by that point. And then we wound up in prison?" Zell looked down at his lap for a second, and Squall had the unsettling feeling this speech wasn't just meant for him. "I mean, damn. I never thought I'd be breakin' out of jail this young. That was crazy! A-and then when we finally found you, at first I thought we might be too late, not gonna lie! But instead we just kinda peeled you up off the floor, and escaped somehow, and the- the missiles, and getting back to Garden just in time? And, man." Zell sagged back into his seat as though someone had let all the air out of him. He ran his hands down his face and briefly stared at his palms before his train of thought came back to him. "Honestly? This feels like the first time we sat down in forever. All I wanna ask is . . . are you doin' okay, man?"

Zell sat there and asked that with bright, earnest eyes, one of them set against a fading purple backdrop; he'd taken a vicious beating in his cell, and come close to having his brains blown out before they managed to escape. He still fidgeted occasionally around the awkward pain of his ribs that repeat layers of curative magic were gradually healing away.

But it was obvious Zell wasn't concerned about that. He wasn't concerned about the various hells they'd all been through together since they'd left Balamb Garden.

He was concerned about Squall, and that very specific hell he'd been through alone.

Squall didn't know what to do with that. It felt too much like pity. He'd never been able to stand pity.

He did know that he was exhausted. He knew that his muscles were still twitchy and achey from channelling the torture rack's voltage. He knew that he was angry, and confused, and somehow spiralling in the confines of his own mind, derailed from the tracks he thought he'd been on.

"It doesn't matter," was what he said, because he also knew that he didn't want to explain any of that. "We're SeeDs. We fight in wars. There are consequences for failing. What happened at the prison . . . it's just part of what we trained for."

Except it wasn't. In so many ways, it wasn't, and a treacherous thread in his voice betrayed his burrowing doubt. Maybe it worked to instil the right mental focus, discipline and hardened loyalty in its future soldiers, but Garden ultimately trained for victory, not defeat.

It also preached political neutrality, although it maintained a core ethics programme that dictated the contracts it accepted. SeeD mercs didn't normally make great prisoners of war or political captives, because they had no loyalties to exploit beyond their contract. Wise parties that hired them rarely trusted them with great, compromising secrets.

But this time, one of their own had betrayed Garden; half of what had happened in the D-District prison was so personal, so designed to break him, as an individual, that he had yet to shake off the sting of violation it had left behind. And the very mission that had put him there had broken every Garden rule. There had been no money involved when they'd taken the mission to assassinate the Sorceress.

Their client had been Garden.

Garden had taken a side.

The twist of Zell's mouth told Squall he'd scented more than a little bullshit. "Okay, sure. Let's pretend our recent lives have been anything like normal SeeD missions, if it makes you feel better. That still doesn't mean you didn't go through hell. Where do you get off, thinkin' it doesn't matter?" He clasped both hands around his mug, eyebrows raised in emotional appeal. "You saved my life back in that prison - I owe ya one! So if you wanna get it all off your chest, go ahead and chew my ear off, okay?"

"I don't."

Zell laughed softly, shaking his head and rubbing a hand through his bedraggled blond quiff. "You're such a tough nut to crack, man."

Seifer's mocking voice echoed in the spaces around those familiar words. Squall clenched his jaw and fought back bile. "There's nothing to say about it. I didn't even have the information Seifer wanted; his questions didn't make any sense."

"What did he wanna know?"

"Something about what SeeD really is. Garden's 'real' goal. He seemed to think there was some secret we all learned when we graduated, and I was keeping it from him." Squall shook his head, its weight unusually heavy against his supporting hand. "He's lost it."

"I dunno, man." Zell frowned, taking his turn to stare into the foam on top of his hot chocolate. "Did you hear what some of the SeeDs said when we were looking for the Headmaster? That he'd sent a whole bunch of them away because the 'true battle for SeeD' was yet to come, or something?"

Squall went cold. Anxiety crunched up inside him, acidic and nasty. He'd forgotten about that. Or maybe just hadn't really listened to it at the time, with all the chaos going on around them and the Galbadian missiles breathing down their necks. But he still hadn't given his report to Cid, still hadn't really heard the full story about the whole Garden Master thing - still knew, when it came down to it, absolutely nothing. He was flying blind; just doing what he was told. Following orders, like the good little soldier Rinoa had mocked him for being.

Maybe she'd been right to call him out on it after all.

"All I'm saying is, maybe there's more to this than we know," Zell was musing, at his most serious. "Maybe SeeD really is meant for something bigger. It'd suck if Seifer was actually right, though. About anything."

If Seifer was right, it meant Squall was worse than wrong. It meant he was . . . nothing. Just an expendable patsy being pushed and pulled around by secrets and politics and hidden layers of orders far beyond his level of command. And was that wrong? Wasn't that the life of a soldier? Wasn't that what he'd signed up for?

What had he signed up?

Believing the answer didn't exist wasn't the same as knowing he just hadn't been trusted with it. The torture had been horrendous, but at the time, the questions had been nonsense, and Squall had drawn some comfort in knowing there was no possible way he could compromise his loyalty to Garden. It was easy enough to keep a secret that didn't exist.

It didn't feel so easy now, knowing it might have been his ignorance instead of Seifer's nonsense. Knowing the choice to crack had simply been . . . taken away from him.

"Yo, Squall?" Zell's hand flashed back and forth across the table. "Still in there?"

He wearily met Zell's gaze, and couldn't quite hide the desperate strain in his voice. "We just need to talk to the Headmaster."

It was a pin in the topic. For once, Zell mercifully seemed to take the hint. "Okay. But don't worry - we're totally gonna hunt Seifer down." He thwacked a fist into his other palm. "Heh. I can't wait to kick his ass. He's gonna wish he got executed after we're through with him."

Squall inhaled a deep noseful of hot chocolate fumes. They'd have to be sweet enough, until he could take his own revenge. "I don't need you to fight my battles for me."

It came out sharp, even for him. Zell cringed like a kicked dog, hunching over his mug and drumming his fingers awkwardly against the ceramic. "That's not what I - look, Squall, we've got your back! You know that, right? And . . . I guess, just . . . I thought someone should tell you what a great job you did, hanging in there like that. I'm sorry it took us so long to get to you. Of course you were okay, though." A strange, wistful tone stole over his words. "You're quiet but tough, Squall. Me, I'm loud and . . . well, I just dunno if I'd have been able to hold out like you did."

It wasn't so much the unexpected praise, but the piteous look on Zell's face that made Squall's gut tighten.

Or that chicken-wuss . . . He wouldn't last three seconds!

He wondered what Zell would think of him if he knew how the torture had really panned out.

The instructor, the little messenger girl . . .

He remembered the way his stomach had twisted in on itself when he'd learned everyone else was there on the edges of his private hell, waiting obliviously in line for the rack. When he'd realised he could tolerate the idea of his team at Seifer's mercy far less than he could tolerate the torture itself.

He wondered if Seifer would really have killed him.

He wondered what Zell would make of the lie.

He wondered if it would ever stop tasting like bitter cowardice and fragile weakness. It might have been a calculated sleight of hand to prolong his own life and delay the turn of his team mates in his place, but it had taken a jagged knife to his pride all the same.

He remembered the powerful warm relief that had engulfed him when he roused from unconsciousness and stared up into that small crowd of familiar faces, all bleeding anger and concern for him. He wondered if that was the first time since leaving Balamb Garden that he'd realised he was in danger of having real friends.

"Zell . . . It wasn't like you think." Even if his mind fumbled for the words, they were firm and even when they left his mouth, strengthened by the decisive way he locked Zell's gaze. "I wasn't brave. I wasn't defiant. I just survived, for as long as I could." Only then did he look away, uncomfortably clearing a sudden obstruction in his throat. " . . . Thanks. For coming to find me."

Zell's beaming grin seemed to collect all the light in the room with blinding intensity. He perked up, straightening out his shoulders, and gave himself a poorly-thought out thump on a bruised chest that made him flinch. "Hey, don't sweat it! We're a team. No one left behind!"

And his smile stepped off a cliff. Squall mentally skirted the yawning abyss of that topic, too, and tried to bury his attention in hot chocolate, but it was still hot enough to take the roof off his mouth.

He willed Zell not to say anything else.

"Do you . . . think they're okay?"

Goddamnit.

"I'm not thinking anything," Squall shrugged. "It's easier that way."

"How can it be?!" Zell let his folded arms and chin flop miserably down onto the table. "They're our friends! How the hell do you always stay so calm? I keep trying to figure out what must have happened. They didn't stop the missiles, so maybe they got caught? They could be back in the prison, or maybe the mission was a bust but they got out anyway and they're in hiding now? Or maybe -"

"Maybe they're dead." Squall waited for Zell's wide, round eyes and sharp intake of breath before he ploughed on. "Whatever happened to them, my decision put them there. I'm responsible. If I stop and think about it . . ." He swallowed, gave a firm shake of his head. "I'm not thinking about it. I'm not talking about it."

His chair juddered backwards with a squeal. He scooped up the hilt of his gunblade and rose almost mechanically, as though primordial survival instincts were driving him away from the table.

Sudden resistance pulled his jacket taut against his shoulders and jerked him to a halt. Squall looked irritably down at the hand that had snagged his clothes.

"Let go."

"Squall, c'mon. Don't leave like that." The boyish face at the end of the restraining arm was all puppy-dog eyes and pleading pout. "At least finish your drink?" Zell inched himself upright again, relinquishing his hold only to rummage quickly in his pants pocket. "Maybe a little TeeTee for the road?"

Squall exhaled, loudly and through his nose, for all avoidance of doubt that he was close to his Zell Dincht-tolerance limits. But he took a step back nonetheless and returned reluctantly to his seat.

"Fine."

It was the hot chocolate, he told himself. Too good to waste.

He sipped it as he retrieved his own pack of Triple Triad cards from his jacket pocket. They were pristine, bound in a quality flip case he'd spend good salary money on in Deling. It was decorated with a silver lion design that had taken his fancy in a shop window, as they'd scouted the city layout. In hindsight, he marvelled that he'd had any time for that.

He made sure to sweep a hand over the table to clear it of any greasy lunchtime crumbs. Zell snorted at the familiar ritual.

"Friendlies only, man. Sick of you destroying my deck."

The corner of Squall's mouth twitched. "Then get a better deck."

"Ugh, you're insufferable."

There was something hypnotic about Triple Triad. The game had a quiet back-and-forth rhythm to it that focused the mind, especially when there were no stakes, your opponent wasn't particularly challenging ( sorry, Zell ) and you didn't have to think too hard about every move. As they played, he barely noticed how some of the tension eased out of his neck and shoulders, and the solid ball of apprehension stuck in his chest began to soften and dissolve, leaving his breathing a little looser and organic. Every moment that passed made him a little more vulnerable to that lurking need for sleep.

In defence of Zell's patience, it took five games (defeats on his part) and one lengthy debate about the principles of the 'Same' card rule (also a Zell defeat) before he decided to try his conversational luck again.

"I gotta know something, Squall."

Squall's eyes barely flicked up from his cards.

"How the hell did you choose?"

"I'm not a good teacher, Zell. Find another TeeTee mentor."

"No, damn it." Zell huffed out the spark of his temper. "For the missile base mission."

Squall's dense, frosty silence said: The one I'm not talking about.

"'Cause I dunno how I would have made a fair call, if it was me."

It was Squall's turn. He delicately laid a bomb card next to Zell's caterchipillar to flip it. His opponent was too busy watching him and waiting intently for an answer to spot the obvious trap he'd set against his card's weak upper side, and bumbled straight into it.

"What makes you think my call was fair?" Squall demanded, after destroying the board with a 7-3 win and leaving Zell with his face buried furiously in his hands. "I wasn't thinking about fairness, or what you guys might have wanted. I just picked what made practical sense to me, at the time. Selphie's passionate, but her team needed someone mature and experienced for such a dangerous mission - Quistis was an easy choice. Then, between you and Irvine . . . Galbadia's his turf. He had more local knowledge and the right accent for any potential subterfuge. And I knew he'd support Selphie's decisions no matter what."

"I'd have supported Selphie," Zell said, unveiling his face and wrinkling his nose.

For completely different reasons, Squall mused.

"The stakes were high; we all needed to be performing at our best. Of all of us you have the strongest attachment to Balamb. The missiles could have put the town at risk, too, and you have family there. If I'd sent you to the base, you might have been distracted, worrying about home."

Zell laughed, sheepishly scratching the back of his head. "Instead I was distracted at home, worrying about whether and when the missiles were comin' for us. But . . . I guess that all makes sense. I'm glad you brought me along." He set his cards down for a second, frowning. "I'm still a little worried about Ma."

"We missed the town."

"Yeah, by this much!" He pinched thumb and forefinger together with a fractional gap between them. "I thought my heart was gonna pop outta my chest when we skimmed past, geez. We can't really tell if we did any damage, and . . . and Ma might be freakin' out! You think she might not worry about me after the Garden takes off and leaves a big missile crater behind? We don't know where we're heading, or how long it'll take us to get back, and y'know . . ." He leaned forward with a conspiratorial air, glancing furtively left and right as though a parental spirit might be spying on him. "I didn't even tell Ma I graduated yet 'cause I didn't want her to worry about me goin' on real missions now."

Dry air that was almost - but not quite - a chuckle escaped Squall's lungs.

"Don't laugh, man!"

"Zell, you're a SeeD. You were literally just a key player in one of the biggest attempted political coups since the Sorceress War; you helped save the entirety of Balamb Garden from targeted missile assault by a foreign nation. . . and your mother still thinks you're going to class?" Squall raised an eyebrow. "She seemed tough enough to me. I think she can handle it. But whatever. Do what you want."

He let Zell preen in the indirect praise - of mother and son both - while he cleared the table for another game. Honestly, any woman who could raise a son like Zell had to be from hardy stock. He was reflexively shuffling his pack when the sly comment struck him.

"You forgot someone."

"What?"

"You forgot about Rinoa."

"No, I didn't." Squall didn't look up as he fished through his deck for his next hand of cards. The pictures and numbers were starting to get blurry through the film of groggy fatigue, and he found himself squinting. "She's not a SeeD; she's our client, and we're meant to be protecting her, not dragging her into Garden business. She had to come with me. I had to make sure she was safe."

There was no immediate response from his motormouth companion, which struck Squall as highly unusual. He regretted his curiosity when he glanced at Zell and found the biggest shit-eating, all-knowing grin he'd ever seen on any face besides Seifer's.

"Had to keep her personally safe, huh?"

It was the eyebrow waggle that did it. Not, Squall convinced himself, the curdling of inexplicable embarrassment within him. He drained his mug and set it down with a loud clack.

"We're done."

"Aww -"

"Really this time." Squall stood up and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his burning eyes shut. The hot drink sat warm and soporific in his stomach, and the too-many-hours awake were finally cashing their cheques against his dwindling reserve funds. "I'm goin' to bed, and you should, too. We don't know what's gonna happen next. We need to be prepared."

"I guess. Too bad Rinoa can't train us. Never seen anyone just stop and drop like she does. That's a talent." Zell let loose with an obscenely unrestrained yawn and leaned so far into a stretch that he was almost bent backwards over his chair. "Chocolate and cards worked though, huh? No need to thank me!"

Squall didn't, but he had the good grace to allow a handwave of acknowledgement for the effort. He probably shouldn't have encouraged him; he'd collected his things and was only three feet away from the table when Zell piped up again.

"Hey, Squall?"

Where was his off switch? Squall arched a brow, irritation starting to sour his features, but his companion was all guileless candour.

"I dunno if it helps, but . . . whatever happened to 'em - whatever happens to us - it's not your fault." Zell pressed a palm flat to his chest. "Maybe Garden chose you as squad leader to start with, but after everything went to hell, we all chose to follow you, man."

Why me? But the scream lodged in his throat, and never broke the surface. He had no answer for Zell beyond a long, helpless look; he was all out of words.

He wasn't sure it did help.

Maybe it made everything worse.

He'd made his decisions, given his orders. His teammates - his friends? - had trusted him without question and followed them to the letter. Now Squall was no more in control of the outcome than he was the direction of the Garden.

Nothing he could do. Nothing but feel bad about it. Squall took off, desperate to black out on his mattress and lose his doubts to the void of sleep.

If only he'd kept the damn door shut.

A/N: I can't believe I'm writing FFVIII fanfiction in the year of our lord 2019, but I am playing the remaster and all of my feels have revived from the dead. FFVIII still my fave FF of all time: confirmed.

I wanted to fill in a little canon gap and also write a) Squall dealing with All Of That at the prison and everything in general getting a little crazy and b) Zell Dincht, purest puppy friend.

I always made Squall lie in the prison. I liked the rescue/reunion scene you get much better that way, and it never felt out of character to me. It was nice to finally flesh out why.

If this fic makes you go sniffing around my other FFVIII fanfiction, please let me warn you that I wrote it while I was practically still a foetus and I'm afraid to even look at it anymore xD so it's available on an 'at your own risk' basis only!